To support: The cataloging and digitization of 2,850 South and Southeast Asian manuscripts dating from the 16th to the 20th centuries from the University of Pennsylvania's Rare Books and Manuscripts Library to enable free online access.

With the largest collection of Indic manuscripts in North America, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries propose to catalog and create digital facsimiles for all of its holdings. The images will be available to view, download, and harvest--free of charge, under a Creative Commons license--via the website, Penn in Hand: Selected Manuscripts. The project will provide more accurate metadata--which can be openly harvested and downloaded as XML files--than is contained in H. I. Poleman's 1938 publication, A Census of Indic Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, and will offer more access points--such as genres, uniform titles, subjects, and scribes--for researchers looking for relevant material. In addition, the names of authors and titles will be entered in their original scripts, making this Philadelphia-based collection a truly international resource. The outcome will afford global accessibility for Penn's unique materials, enhancing teaching and research worldwide.

Digitizing the University of Pennsylvania’s Early Modern, Western Manuscripts, 1601-1800

To support: The digitization of 1,000 codices, documents, and fragments on a variety of topics in history, literature, religion, and other humanities fields produced in Europe and North America from 1601 to 1800 and held by the university's Rare Book and Manuscript Library.

The University of Pennsylvania Libraries propose (1) creating digital facsimiles of approximately 1,000 early modern, Western manuscripts held by the Rare Book & Manuscript Library; (2) maintaining a freely-available Web site with faceted searching for the project’s facsimiles; and (3) updating MARC cataloging records in WorldCat and Franklin (Penn’s online catalog) with persistent URLs that take researchers to the facsimiles. The project will enhance teaching and research at Penn, as well as make Penn’s unique materials available globally through a variety of discovery points. For this project—with a total cost of $753,912—Penn is requesting $343,913 from the NEH to fund salaries and fringe benefits for two years for one full-time digital data coordinator at the Librarian A level, two full-time digital camera operators at the Library Clerk level, and a processing assistant working 1,000 hours per year.

Digitizing the University of Pennsylvania's Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, 1000-1600

No statement available.

Penn proposes to produce & make freely available on the Internet digital facsimiles of its collection of European manuscripts from 1000 to 1600. With a total project cost of $790,272, Penn requests $292,958 from NEH to fund salary & fringe benefits for 2 years for 1 full-time digital data coordinator & 2 full-time digital camera operators. Penn???s collection comprises approximately 800 discrete items, totaling approximately 320,000 pages and offers important research material in the fields of art history; English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish literatures; European political, social, and economic history; the history of science and technology, including alchemy; the history of witchcraft; legal studies; music; religious studies; and philosophy. The project will provide 3 entry points for the facsimiles: access through a hot link in the WorldCat and local cataloging records, access via Digital Scriptorium, and access through a project-specific website with faceted searching.